Visitors to Budapest’s Liszt Ferenc Airport can encounter a rather peculiar relief in Terminal 2.
If you walk attentively through the passenger corridor leading to the boarding gates in Terminal 2A, you’ll spot this unusual artwork on one of the walls.
The Hungarian text on the relief reads:
“The planes are still waiting for me today.
The lights keep flashing.
The high sky is calling me to fly.”
Below the text is the name Korda György, the year 1981, and a depiction of an embracing couple.
Some context:
The relief features a excerpt from the 1981 song “Reptér” (“Airport”) by the Hungarian singer couple György Korda and Klári Balázs.The funky song “Reptér” was a major hit at the time, although as young people we often laughed at its somewhat silly lyrics.
For example:
“Strange faces all around me,
nimble-footed people,
the loudspeaker calls a Portuguese.
A blonde little girl is saying goodbye,
who knows where she’s going,
a bearded German is cashing a cheque.”
The song was later largely forgotten by the country, only to be rediscovered a few years ago — becoming an even bigger hit than it was four decades earlier.
Even young people were singing it, and the elderly couple could barely keep up with the demand, as audiences in every village and town wanted to hear it.
By now, the “Reptér” craze has somewhat subsided.
One small inaccuracy on the relief: it incorrectly suggests that György Korda wrote the song. In reality, it was written by the duo Máté and István S. Nagy. (Péter Máté, a popular Hungarian singer, died three years after the song was released.)
The inauguration of the relief was also attended by Márton Nagy, Hungary’s Minister for National Economy, who spoke about the development of Budapest Airport. We recently wrote about this topic in detail.
Ad the legendary song:
